


The Perfect Position

by moon_custafer



Category: Original - Fandom
Genre: Gen, Implied Violence, Original work - Freeform, Period Typical Attitudes, crime pulp pastiche, self-rescuing heroine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-05
Updated: 2019-08-05
Packaged: 2020-07-30 18:23:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20101624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moon_custafer/pseuds/moon_custafer
Summary: Needed a place to host an original work I wrote six years ago and recently revisited.Stranded in a small town, a hard-boiled photographers’ model is desperate enough to take a gig that makes her uneasy...





	The Perfect Position

_Bam! Bam! Bam!_

“Miss Challenger, you’d better not be dyeing your hair in there!” Ah, the dulcet tones of Mrs. Brant, rooming-house proprietrix. “Wasting water & staining my good clean sink! Like a --” She whispered, for dramatic effect, I suppose, since as far as I knew we were alone on the top storey: “-- like a _hoo-er._”

I glanced down at the tube of Ursol Glo-Rnz I’d just applied to my shining locks. Jesus, that bitch had perfect timing. What now? From the corner of my eye I could just see the donnicker in the corner. Oh no, not _that. _ But the pounding resumes on the bathroom door, and it’s any old port in a storm.

Forty-five seconds later, I was innocently greeting my landlady with my hair done up in curlers under an old kerchief. I’m good at quick changes.

“Lovely morning to you, Mrs. Brant!”

“Hmf. I got other folks waiting to use the bathroom. If you haven’t taken all the hot water already.”

I stepped aside with an “after you” gesture that made her sniff haughtily, but which deflected her attention from the rubber gloves and dye box clutched behind my back in my other hand. When I judged it safe, I made for my room, closed the door gently, and only then did I allow myself a long sigh.

_Kid, you just dyed your own hair in a toilet bowl. And you thought this small town would be all picket fences and lemonade._ But in my line of work, you’ve got looks to keep up; so I gave my hair another towel, and started my morning exercises.

Halfway through a handstand I started to come over all shaky and faint. Now, when you’re upside down like that, the blood ought to be rushing to your head, if it’s rushing anywhere; so I knew it was bad, that faintness. I turned myself right-side-up and sat for a bit, looking at my purse hanging on the bedpost, trying to resist opening it and counting what I already knew would be seventy-seven cents. I knew why I was dizzy, too; I hadn’t eaten any supper last night. _Never eat after 6 o’clock at night, _my Aunt Molly had said, _you’ll get fat._ But I hadn’t eaten any lunch yesterday, either; just a cup of coffee.

_ Just give in and go get some food already. You won’t find a gig if you’re passed out. _

The nearest place was a couple of blocks away. I drank a glass of water before tying a nicer scarf over my hair and dressing to leave the house, and by the time I was sitting at the counter I felt human enough.

“What’ll it be, honey?” asked a big, squared-off blonde who looked about as comfortable in her waitress’s uniform as Paul Bunyan would have done. Madge, I’d heard one of the regulars call her. I’d already figured what I needed to ingest, and what I could afford to order, and I split the difference:

“Just a glass of tomato juice, please.”

The waitress raised an eyebrow. She didn’t pluck them, I noticed, but they were nice enough eyebrows, for all that; plucked brows and make-up would’ve looked all wrong on a face like hers, anyway.

“Well, if I had a figure like yours, I’d take care of it too.”

“If you had a figure like hers we’d be doing better business!” hollered a masculine voice from the kitchen.

“If _you_ had a figure like hers, George” yelled Madge, “you’d never be able to stop giving yourself the eye long enough to do any work!” I looked down at the counter to hide the smile I couldn’t keep from cracking, but I wasn’t quick enough. Madge caught my eye and blushed. Then she lowered her voice: “I’m guessing it’s really your purse that’s on the diet, though, ain’t it, honey?” Before I could answer she turned to the kitchen doors again: “Adam & Eve on a raft and wreck’em!”

I tried to demur politely, but it’s tough to speak with your mouth watering, and besides:

“Shut your mouth or someone’ll hear you.” She patted my hand grumpily, if that’s possible, and set a tomato juice in front of me. “Can’t have the other customers think I’m getting soft.”

God bless all tender-hearted bulldykes. Damn her, too, for keeping me alive another day. Prolonging the fall before I hit bottom.

I’d had better scrambled eggs, but I’d had worse, too. _Hunger is the best sauce_, my Uncle Arnie used to say. My relatives talked about food a lot.

_ Slow bites. Make it last_. Madge was pouring coffee for an old man at the other end of the counter; the radio blared pure Kansas corn, with a gabbling disc jockey between the songs. Other people can envision a future - no matter if it’s a bright shiny one, or one where the world gets destroyed: I could wish for either; but the last few years have been a big blank page to me, like driving in fog. I know there’s stuff around me but I can’t see a thing until I run into it.

A shadow took the seat beside mine:

“Coffee over here, Madge, when you’ve got a moment. Don’t worry,” he murmured in my ear, “she’s got a heart of gold, really.”

“I know.” Wondering what sort of guy would strike up a conversation with a woman by slapping a left-handed compliment on another one, I turned to view the guy face-on, only to be hit with his profile; he was looking at the wall behind the counter like he’d embarrassed himself talking to me. Fine. I turned my attention back to my eggs.

“I’m sorry if I was rude,” he started up again, “You’re just so pretty I was caught off-guard. Don’t worry, I’m not a creep or anything.”

Nine times out of ten, when somebody starts by telling you what they’re not, that’s exactly what they are. Still, at least he was an obvious case. I figured I could handle an obvious case.

“Joe Kramer,” the guy continued. “I’m a bit of a freelance photographer, actually.” I tried to look non-committal, while I checked him out through my lashes, trying to find some detail that would justify my dislike. It wasn’t working - the clothes were clean, neat, and not too new; the only bulges in the pockets were the size and shape of a regular wallet and a hanky. No dirt under the fingernails, and the watch was solid but not flashy, and set to the correct time.

“Have you ever done any modelling?”

Time to cut to the chase - I drew out one of the agency’s cards from my purse. I’d been between things for the last little while, but figured I would still be on their books. It stopped him short, and he hesitated before taking the card at arm’s length and squinting at the letters.

“They’ll handle all the booking, if you’re interested,” I said. “I don’t do any freelance.” I did, actually, and I ought to have been working on this guy, but--

There was nothing outwardly wrong with him. I don’t just mean looks - his manner wasn’t nervous, and it wasn’t too smooth either; he didn’t twitch or leer; his voice didn’t have that wheedling tone that can turn bitterly angry in a second when you don’t give him what he wants. All the same, I didn’t much care for him.

I remembered another thing Uncle Arnie used to say: _I’ve known many people who were excellent judges of character, Etheline, and they all got scammed on the regular. Safer to judge circumstances— can the guy get the drop on you? Is there anyone else looking? You just need to figure out if somebody’s bughouse enough to harm you in front of witnesses. If he’s not— then just make sure you’ve always got witnesses._

I figured if this guy was willing to go through the agency then he wasn’t just blowing smoke; and he’d have to give them a name and address, which might discourage any shennanigans he might have planned; and, well, it made me feel like a real person, for a bit, to pull out that business card. Like I said, I can’t see a thing until I run into it.

“Stroke of luck for me,” he said when he finally pocketed the card. “I’ll call your agency, then, and they’ll give you my address?”

“That’s how it works.”

Madge came by and poured his coffee. I noticed she hadn’t hurried to serve him and looked to her for some clue, but she was eyeballing my empty glass:

“More tomato juice, honey?”

“Just the check, thanks Madge, I’ve some errands to run.” There were a couple of postage stamps at the bottom of my purse, I was sure of it; and the previous tenant of my room had left some paper and envelopes in the desk. If I hurried, I could send the agency my latest address before the mail got picked up, and without any further outlay of cash. It was time I swallowed my pride and let _someone_ know where I’d run off to when I left the city. Like as not the guy wouldn’t hire me when he found out he had to pay up front; but if he _did_ hire me for a session, I knew the fee would easily cover a bus ticket back to civilization.

It’s not as though I was a fragile little thing, after all - I’d fended off bigger guys than him. _But those gorillas were just overenthusiastic,_ said the back of my brain. _There was no **sneak** in them._

I paid Madge for the tomato juice over her muttered protests, and made it back to Mrs. Brant’s without interruption. After some unladylike language I located the stamp and the paper, pen and envelope. It took a bit of running to catch the postman as he strolled away from the mailbox at the end of the block; _good thing I had my vitamins_, I thought, and blessed Madge again.

“Never thought I’d have pretty ladies chasing me, not at my time o’ life,” the postman chortled as he took my letter and added it to his pick-up.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday I fidgeted about my room, eventually settling myself to mending clothes and a small tear I’d detected in the bedspread - no need to give Mrs. Brant any more to gripe about, and besides, I like things tidy. After the mail came and went without reply, I walked out to the corner store and bought myself a box of animal crackers.

Come evening I was able to borrow a cigarette off the girl down the hall; I held out until nine o’clock before I smoked it by the open window. At ten-thirty I drank a glass of the hottest water I could get from the bathroom tap; it eased the hunger pains enough to sleep.

Thursday I woke and allowed myself a breakfast of the remaining crackers. I would need some real food soon, or better yet some word from the agency. The weather was fine and I waited out on the porch for the mail. My new friend the postman brightened as he saw me:

“It’s the lady who likes postmen,” he stated.

“She was only a postmaster’s daughter,” I said irrelevantly, “But oh, how she sorted the males. Any letters for Miss Etheline Challenger?” He chuckled, shuffled through the bundle of envelopes, and handed one off to me with a bow and a flourish:

“Your invite to the ball, milady.”

It was, as you’ve probably guessed, an assignment to pose for one Joe Kramer, at his house on 2 Willett Ave at three-o’clock the following afternoon. A reply postcard was included, and I noted my agreement and gave it to the postman to drop for me. A check was included, too; my contract for the sitting was printed on the back so that I’d have to sign in order to cash it, but that was how they did things.

I waved to the postman as he moved on to the next house, and returned to my seat on the porch, feeling less relief than I’d expected despite the dough. _Come on, kid. He’s not going to try anything you can’t take, as long as the agency knows where he lives; and he had to tell’em where he lives so you could meet him, right?_

Cashing my check went a long way towards restoring my confidence, as did the chicken salad I had after my visit to the bank. I ate downtown. I suppose I was afraid Kramer would be hanging around George and Madge’s greasy-spoon if I went back there.

2 Willett Ave was a big square building of artificial stone, one of those standard-issue houses you can find across the country whenever you leave the city for the suburbs or further out. Kramer hung back in the entrance hall as the door squeaked heavily open. Behind him, half-a-dozen newspapers that had never been unfolded were scattered on the floor of the dim hallway. Not much of a reader, I guessed.

I couldn’t smell anything rotten as he welcomed me, but the air was stale and dusty. Telling myself the layout was the important thing, I glanced around, trying not to be too obvious. Staircase to the right, front parlor to the left; hallway straight to the kitchen at the back: An exit if he got between me and the front door. A back room to the left of the kitchen was separated from it by a door, and from the front parlor by a doorway twice as wide, with a curtain of glass beads.

Kramer led me through the front parlor. It looked cosy enough, if a bit overstocked with antimacassars. I couldn’t believe he’d had any hand in decorating the place, and wondered if he lived with his parents; or perhaps his wife had walked out on him. Well, it was none of my business.

"Can we set up down here?" I asked. No way I was going upstairs with this one if I could help it. "Those beads would make a swell backdrop," I added by way of reason, and hoped he wasn't the kind that resents suggestions from the talent - even the pro photographers can be like that sometimes, though never so often as the amateurs, who have the luxury of considering themselves artists.

“Already have,” he said, and split the bead curtain as we entered what must normally have been the dining room - I could see little circles in the plush of the rug from the feet of a table and chairs. Right now there was only a single chair and Kramer’s camera, which I had to admit was a pretty good one - an old Agfa-Ansco on a tripod. There were a couple of lamps, too, with their shades removed; and a reflector, home-made from a pie tin. A trunkful of props - Chinese fans, cheap novelty masks, an obviously toy gun - sat on the floor with its lid open against a wall papered with some kind of flowering-vine print.

He began to fiddle with the lights. Undressing relaxed me - I know that might sound strange, but it was familiar and reassuring. The fact that Kramer evidently knew the equipment reassured me too: for half an hour I’d be able to pretend I was back working with a pro who, no matter how provocative the finished product might look, wouldn’t try any funny business. A girl’s safer with a real professional photographer than she would be with a monk - after all, a pro photographer’s getting paid for _his_ time too, and he’s not going to waste it. All the same, I made sure to remember that this guy was the one paying and I was the one being paid, and that we were pretty far from being in the same boat.

Once Kramer had his camera ready, I gave him the pose where I’m perched on the edge of a chair, with my legs out to one side so they look like they go on for miles; the one where I’m standing next to the chair, with my hand on my waist and one foot up on the seat, like it’s the world’s highest brass rail; the one where I’m on my back on the chair, with my legs going up to the ceiling and my hair falling to the floor; I even curled up on the chair with one of the fans and a wistful, faraway expression like one of those French models from the last century. _Tomorrow morning,_ I told myself -- _no, tonight, as soon as this is over, you’ll be catching the bus out of this little patch of Arcadia._

“Can we try a... more dramatic pose?” Kramer finally asked. He’d taken the camera off its tripod a while back to get some different angles.

“What kind?”

He gestured towards the door that led to the kitchen:

“I was thinking of having you holding the door as though you had been looking through it, but glancing back, like someone had caught you in the act.” I stepped up to the half-open door and took hold of the handle. “Lean forward,” he said, “like you’re peering around it.” He came over and placing a hand on my shoulder, adjusted the tilt of my head so that my face would be half-hidden by the edge of the door, but one eye would still be glancing back into the dining room.

If that sounds uncomfortable, it was. I was just hoping I wouldn’t get a crick in my neck that would last into the following day— when just over his shoulder I saw something that nearly froze me before I caught myself, kept my face relaxed and played dumb. Last thing I wanted was him noticing something was up.

There was an oval frame hanging in the corner; I don’t know why I hadn’t seen it before, except that when I’d been sitting it had been behind me and to one side. From its shape and size it was a portrait, and it was turned to face the wall, like he didn’t want whoever was in the picture seeing what it was he was going to do.

Now, I know people can be pretty prudish, and certainly there are all sorts of things you might not want to do in front of your mother’s eyes even if she’s a photograph, and lots of them are harmless. But something about that blind cardboard back sent my mind to nasty places. I thought of all those unread newspapers in the front hall, and the way my client had kept out of view from the street as he let me in. I wondered whether the picture turned to the wall was a family portrait that did not contain Mr. Kramer.

_Don’t show you're suspicious. You don’t know anything for sure about this guy._

But then, this guy doesn’t know me, either. Doesn’t know a damn thing about me; who I am; what I can do.

“It’s kind of mysterious,” I began, “Me peering through this door. Is it for a detective magazine?”

“A detective magazine, yes,” he agreed with hardly any hesitation. “They’re always looking for shots of girls in what you might call... dramatic scenarios.”

I giggled. I can, when it’s required.

“From what I hear, some of those ‘scenarios’ can be pretty, well--” (here I paused for effect) “strange?” I laid the lightest emphasis on the last word.

He cleared his throat.

“Well, the damsel-in-distress is a stock-in-trade for those kind of magazines.” Another moment’s hesitation. “Would you be willing to pose for a few of those?”

I widened my eyes:

“You mean, tied up or something?”

“Sure. Have you ever done that kind of thing before?”

“No, but anything for a laugh.” This would be a harmless enough direction to take things, provided Joe Shutterbug was harmless. If he wasn’t... well, like I said, he didn’t know _me. _

Somehow I wasn’t surprised when Kramer pulled a long piece of rope from the prop box; he must have had it there ready. I guess I hadn’t caught him off guard so much as sped his plans up a bit. Pretending to look dubious, I watched as he bound my ankles. Good rope: not any old clothesline; from a window sash most likely— there was a bit of wear a couple of feet from one end where it had passed back and forth over a pulley many times. I sat on the chair and obligingly put my hands together behind my back. _If **you **start it, Uncle Arnie used to say, you can control how they tie you up. _A bit anyway. I felt Kramer loop the middle of the rope of the rope around my wrists. _Damn. _It’s so much easier to wriggle out if they start with one end. I braced my thumbs against each other, trying to put a bit of space between my wrists, but not so much that he’d notice. An eighth of an inch was all I’d need, or so I hoped. I’d probably lost a few pounds in the past week - you’d think that’d make escaping easier, but you’d be wrong. You can clench and unclench muscle, after all, but you can’t make your bones any smaller.

This is where I should probably pause for an explanation: I went into modelling when the sideshows began to die out. The age of Harry Houdini is over, and I can’t stand around wasting my time and looks waiting for it to come again. But I prefer what you might call “specialty” modelling -- I’m better with knots than most boy scouts, and like I said, most professional photographers won’t take advantage -- but if they try to I feel safer knowing I can get myself loose any time I like.

Kramer was tying my ankles now. He was starting to drop the pretence this was all good clean fun. Sweat on his brow. He tied me pretty tight, but I wasn’t so worried there - when people tie you up with your shoes on, they never think about the size of your bare feet, and high heels are easy to slip off. Now it became a question of waiting for his attention to wander, and hoping he didn’t get too rough in the meantime.

Well, he did. Or tried to. I don’t care to repeat exactly what it was he said to me: the gist of it was, that I was beautiful, that I was dumb, and that he was about to enjoy giving me what I deserved. The upside, in my opinion, was that now he was showing his colors I no longer had any reason to hold back. Behind the chair, I’d already pulled the loop tight around one of my wrists, so it was loose enough on the other to pull free.

I still had to wait through thirty seconds of him crowing and gloating before he leaned in close enough for me to throw a punch at his jaw.

Kramer staggered back. I picked up the camera he’d dropped and clobbered him over the head with it. Lucky for me he went down right away; no wonder he’d wanted me tied - the guy wasn’t much as a physical specimen. Unfortunately he’d only be out cold a couple of minutes by my guess, and he’d locked the front and back doors - but not the one that led downstairs.

I considered my choices - on the one hand, I could search a man who might regain consciousness at any moment; and on the other I could hope the cellar had a door he’d forgotten. Crazy as it sounds, I chose the latter -- any thought of touching that man gave me the heebie-jeebies. I bundled up the clothes I’d worn to the house, hoping to avoid dirtying them if I escaped.

The next half-hour -- well, suffice it to say the cellar had a recently disturbed dirt floor, as well as an unlocked coal door, and that I didn’t stop running until I made the greasy spoon. There George and Madge comforted me and let me use the phone; I doubt Mrs. Brandt would have done either had she seen me, weeping, half-naked, and my face white beneath the streaks of dust.

By the time the police came, I’d calmed down, washed, and done up my buttons. The officers listened, and they didn’t make me go back into that house. Kramer surrendered without a fight— the man was a weakling, like I said, when faced with anyone he hadn’t got tied up. “Kramer” was a false name, of course. In the basement, the police found the house’s real owner and her two kids - the ones whose faces had been turned to the wall in that back parlor. I don’t know why he hadn’t just taken the picture down. Maybe he’d planned to add it to his photo collection. The police found that too.

I still wonder sometimes who, and what, Kramer was making me act out for him when he asked me to peer through that doorway like I was watching something happen. But I try not to think about it too often.

I stayed that night and the next two with Madge and her mother; they gave the reporters coffee and cookies when they came to interview me, and shooed them away when I got tired. The following Monday, someone brought me a telegram that the agency had sent to Mrs. Brandt’s rooming-house:

2 MODEL 3 DETECTIVE JOB OFFERS STOP THIS AGENCY CANNOT REPRESENT YOU FOR LATTER STOP PLEASE ADVISE FULL STOP

Seems to me, I _could _do with a change of agency.


End file.
